What We Want Doesn't Really Matter
by AmethystDreamer
Summary: And sometimes it's the only thing that does. In college, Rachel discovers she doesn't want to sing for the rest of her life. She's mellowed out since high school. A broken heart will do that to you. Chapter 2 is edited and lengthened.
1. Chapter 1

T**itle: What we want doesn't really matter; and sometimes it's the only thing that does**

**Summary: In her freshman year of college, Rachel discovered she didn't want to sing.**

**Rating: T**

**Disclaimer: If I owned Glee, Finn's shower/singing scene would be an hour long**

* * *

In her freshman year of college, Rachel discovered that she didn't want to sing and act for the rest of her life. She was on stage at NYU in the Drama Departments production of "Hair", and there were all these people, and cameras, and reporters, and she thought at the end that she didn't really like it at all. She had been working for this performance for months, but she wasn't really close with any of her cast mates, and there was so much time she put into it, and it was over in one night. She knew that Broadway shows would go on for months, but this show actually wasn't all that fun, and she couldn't imagine doing it even one more time. The first day of sophomore year, she switched her major. Education sounded like fun; she wasn't ready to give up singing all together, and helping children like Mr. Shue helped her was a fitting way to pay tribute for the growing up she did in high school. As a sophomore in high school, the idea of working with bratty little children would have repulsed her. But she had mellowed out since then. A broken heart will do that to you.

So she majored in music appreciation and history, then got her teaching credentials, and moved to a public high school in southern California to begin her career as a choir teacher. She also gave private singing lessons to supplement her salary. She loved it, and was great too. So great, in fact, that one of the most prestigious schools in the country offered her a position. She accepted, because it was an amazing opportunity, and also because it was near by, so she could keep all of her clients.

Rachel knew that this school had a great football program, but because football reminded her of Finn, she tried not to learn much about the program when checking the school out. She wished she had on her first day when she was being shown to the performance hall, and she saw him walking down the hall. The woman she was walking with, a pretty blonde with a cross necklace, whispered, "That's Finn Hudson, the football coach. He filled in for the old choir teacher until you arrived. Isn't he dreamy?"

Rachel could do nothing ,but duck her head and hope that he didn't see her, and wouldn't ever hear of her. At her first afternoon rehearsal, she started out by taking the time to get to know all of her students. There weren't too many of them. The choir club was optional, and much smaller than the formal fine art classes she taught (concert choir, performing arts, drama).

"So, what do you all call yourself?" Rachel asked brightly, smiling at the six kids who sat in the theatre chairs and stared at her.

"The Choir Club. Duh." One girl in front said, glancing at the boy next to her to see if he laughed. Rachel was momentarily taken back by the attitude.

"Okay, well, let's start by introducing ourselves. I want to get to know you all, your strengths, weaknesses, what you want to do with your life. My name is Ms. Berry. I grew up in Ohio, and was a part of a club like this when I was about your age."  
"I'm Katelyn. I'm going to go to UCLA and major in performing acts, and win all the Oscar categories for an exceptional actress."

"My name is Adanna. I'm a fashion designer extraordinaire! Look for my designs on runways."

"Our designs," A flamboyant boy sitting next to her corrected. "I'm her fashion partner, Eric."

The boy sitting in the back pushed up in glasses and told Rachel, "I'm Mike. I like computers, chess, and math."

The girl next to him turned bright red, and whispered something.

"Sorry, I didn't get that." Rachel said. "It's fine, we will work on projecting later."

The girl tried again, but Katelyn stepped in. "Her name is Liz. She is extremely shy, but can sing. Yeah, I know weird contradictions."

"Okay." Rachel wondered if this was how Mr. Shue felt. Her New Directions couldn't have been this challenging. "Last one. Who are you?"  
"Trevor. I play football. Coach Hudson actually made me go out for this. He said that he did this in high school, and it made him better. I want to be like him, so here I am."

Teenagers wanting to be like Finn Hudson. What else was new?

"I hate our name." Adanna announced. "Choir Club is so lame."

"So are we." Eric said.

Rachel smiled and clapped her hands. "I'm here to help you guys be less lame. You can choose your own name if you want to, and I plan to branch out from traditional songs. It'll be a total change of direction."

"I like Change of Directions." Trevor said. "For a name."

"Too long," Katelyn replied. "It has to be short and catchy."

"Changed Directions?" Mike suggested.

Adanna shook her head. "No, that's like we randomly switched from somewhere."  
"We don't want the judges picturing a fork in the road when we sing. We need something with possibilities."

"How about New Directions?" Trevor wondered.

Rachel almost pinched herself. No way this was happening. She came here to leave her memories of New Directions behind. It's not that they weren't great, at the beginning. The end of high school was drama filled, and it pained her to be reminded of it. It was going to be hard enough with Finn as the coach here, even if she hadn't seen him yet. She just hoped it would last.

"New Directions? Did you think of that all on your own?" A new voice from the door asked. They all turned around to see Finn Hudson walking down the aisle and standing next to Rachel, who suddenly wanted to scream. Or cry. Or run as fast as she could in the opposite direction. Or some sort of combination of the three.

Trevor jumped up to high five his coach. "Yeah, sort of. Do you like it?"  
Rachel could feel his eyes on her when he replied, "I love it. It's perfect for you all."

"Go away." Rachel hissed under her breath. Seeing him again, being so close to him for the first time in years was wrecking havoc with her emotions, and the faster he left, the better it would be.

"Why don't you seven start on some vocal exercises? I need to get caught up with the Fabulous Ms. Berry." Finn suggested to the room at large. When the teens had dispersed, he turned to Rachel, and smirked at her. "You follow me across the country, and tell me to leave?"

She walked out into the hall at a furious pace, determined not to let her students hear her conflict with him. Because she was new, and he was clearly the favorite, they would hate her over him, and it would make her job so much more difficult.

"I didn't know you were here. I didn't take this job for you."  
He laughed bitterly. "Rachel, you've never done anything for anyone but yourself."

"It's not a bad thing." She crossed her arms, and stared at his shoulder. She would have looked over it and behind him, but she hadn't grown at all. "I've gotten where I am because I didn't let anyone hold me back."  
"Even if you had said yes, if it was meant to be, you'd be where you are today. What ever happened to Broadway anyway?"  
She shrugged. "After high school, I just didn't want to sing anymore. My heart wasn't in it."

She didn't tell him that performing couldn't have her heart because she had left it with him. "I really love teaching."  
"I'm glad you're happy." He was sincere, and it almost brought Rachel to tears, because she was happy, but not as happy as she could have been.

That night when she went home to her small apartment, she cried in bed like she had every since she was a freshman in collage, remembering her sophomore year in high school. Finn had asked her out at the end of that year, and she said yes. They were so happy for two years, but right before they graduated, he asked her to marry him. And she said no, because she was afraid that it would hold her back. There had been a huge fight, and things got said, and when she left, she didn't say goodbye to him. Rachel didn't ever admit that she sometimes wished he'd come after her, like in the movies.

As the semester went on, Rachel found herself sympathizing with Mr. Shue more and more. Katelyn is a terribly bossy girl, though she is extremely talented, and Rachel hoped she was never that bad. She clearly liked Trevor, and Rachel had to fight the urge to tell her it was a horrible idea; that these singing football players would steal your heart and never give it back. Adanna was a huge drama queen to, Eric was gay (she wasn't homophobic, she had two gay dads. It's just one of those things that made the new New Directions harder than it had to be), and Mike couldn't dance. At all. No matter how much time Rachel spent working with him, he just didn't get it.

There were bright sides too, though. Liz got progressively less shy as the club developed, and Rachel discovered she was a lovely girl.

Also, new New Directions was good. Really good. Regionals weren't until the very end of the year, but she definitely thought they had a good chance.

Rachel still avoided Finn as much as she could. Her heart was torn in two, and seeing him every day just made it bleed harder, so she went out of her way not to see him. He sought her out a few times, but she never responded past forced politeness. She never met his eyes, afraid he would do what he always had and see into her soul.

One day at practice, towards the end, Trevor suddenly stopped singing, and asked. "Coach Hudson?"  
Rachel turned, and sure enough, Finn was storming down the aisle. "what are you doing here?" She asked, but he didn't answer, focusing on pulling something out of his pocket.

"My mom sent me this today." He opened the blue box, and Rachel gasped. It was the ring he had proposed to her with. "Can you imagine how I feel, having this come back into my life at the exact same time you come back into it?"  
She felt her eyes feel with tears. "I'm not in your life; Finn, we're just coworkers."

"No, we aren't." He looked at the array of kids on stage for a second. "We're them, okay Rachel? That's us up there. We're best friends, and a couple, and the best damn singers in the club, and we're supposed to be together."

She shook her head furiously, and tears flew from her eyes. "Stop it. What you said, I can't let that go."

"Well, I can't let you go." He reached down and took hold of both her shoulders. "I love you. I'm sorry for everything I said, but you hurt me so bad. God, Rachel, I can't even look at anyone else because every time I do, all I see is you."

She was really sobbing now, falling apart as she only did when she knew he'd be there to put her back together. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Don't, just stop. Don't be sorry. Be with me." Finn pulled her closer, and she hid her face in his chest, trying to get a hold of herself.

"I love you." She finally managed to say. "I really, really do."

The kids on stage cheered, and Finn looked at them. "You guys can handle yourselves for the rest of the afternoon, right? Miss Berry and I need to talk."  
Katelyn scoffed. "Talk, right." Everyone glared at her. "Yes, we'll be fine. Have fun _talking."_

"Come on, Rachel." he whispered in her ear, turning her and starting to walk to the door. "It's time to go home."  
She looked at him with watery eyes. "I want to go home with you. I don't want to leave you."  
"You aren't." He said forcefully. "Believe me, you aren't ever leaving me again."

"I wanted to say yes, the first time." Rachel whispered. "I did, I was just scared."

He stopped, and knelt. "Say yes this time then, Rach." He held out the pretty, simple ring he bought at eighteen.

"Yes." He slipped the ring on her finger.

"And it doesn't matter whether you would have accepted back then. Other than saving us both years of heartache, we still would be right here."

She looked at him, and wondered how he could have so much faith. Reading her mind, as he so often did, he simply said, "We're like Tony and Maria. There really isn't anything that can keep us apart. Anyway, even if you didn't come to me, I was going after you."

* * *

**I was feeling angst. Title comes from "Moonlight". I hope you enjoyed it. It was only in my research for this story that I realized Tony and Maria were in West Side Story. I feel so stupid.**

**Please review!**


	2. Edited

**Title: What we want doesn't really matter; and sometimes it's the only thing that does**

**Summary: In her freshman year of college, Rachel discovered she didn't want to sing.**

**Rating: T**

In her freshman year of college, Rachel discovered that she didn't want to sing and act for the rest of her life. She was on stage at NYU in the Drama Departments production of "Hair", and there were all these people, and cameras, and reporters, and she thought at the end that she didn't really like it at all. She had been working for this performance for months, but she wasn't really close with any of her cast mates, and there was so much time she put into it, and it was over in one night. She knew that Broadway shows would go on for months, but this show actually wasn't all that fun, and she couldn't imagine doing it even one more time. The first day of sophomore year, she switched her major. Education sounded like fun; she wasn't ready to give up singing all together, and helping children like Mr. Shue helped her was a fitting way to pay tribute for the growing up she did in high school. As a sophomore in high school, the idea of working with bratty little children would have repulsed her. But she had mellowed out since then. A broken heart will do that to you.

So she majored in music appreciation and history, then got her teaching credentials, and moved to a public high school in southern California to begin her career as a choir teacher. She also gave private singing lessons to supplement her salary. She loved it, and was great too. So great, in fact, that one of the most prestigious schools in the country offered her a position. She accepted, because it was an amazing opportunity, and also because it was near by, so she could keep all of her clients.

Rachel knew that this school had a great football program, but because football reminded her of Finn, she tried not to learn much about the program when checking the school out. She wished she had on her first day when she was being shown to the performance hall, and she saw him walking down the hall. The woman she was walking with, a pretty blonde with a cross necklace, whispered, "That's Finn Hudson, the football coach. He filled in for the old choir teacher until you arrived. Isn't he dreamy?"

Rachel could do nothing ,but duck her head and hope that he didn't see her, and wouldn't ever hear of her. At her first afternoon rehearsal, she started out by taking the time to get to know all of her students. There weren't too many of them. The choir club was optional, and much smaller than the formal fine art classes she taught (concert choir, performing arts, drama).

"So, what do you all call yourself?" Rachel asked brightly, smiling at the six kids who sat in the theatre chairs and stared at her.

"The Choir Club. Duh." One girl in front said, glancing at the boy next to her to see if he laughed. Rachel was momentarily taken back by the attitude.

"Okay, well, let's start by introducing ourselves. I want to get to know you all, your strengths, weaknesses, what you want to do with your life. My name is Ms. Berry. I grew up in Ohio, and was a part of a club like this when I was about your age."  
"I'm Katelyn. I'm going to go to UCLA and major in performing acts, and win all the Oscar categories for an exceptional actress."

"My name is Adanna. I'm a fashion designer extraordinaire! Look for my designs on runways."

"Our designs," A flamboyant boy sitting next to her corrected. "I'm her fashion partner, Eric."

The boy sitting in the back pushed up in glasses and told Rachel, "I'm Mike. I like computers, chess, and math."

The girl next to him turned bright red, and whispered something.

"Sorry, I didn't get that." Rachel said. "It's fine, we will work on projecting later."

The girl tried again, but Katelyn stepped in. "Her name is Liz. She is extremely shy, but can sing. Yeah, I know weird contradictions."

"Okay." Rachel wondered if this was how Mr. Shue felt. Her New Directions couldn't have been this challenging. "Last one. Who are you?"  
"Trevor. I play football. Coach Hudson actually made me go out for this. He said that he did this in high school, and it made him better. I want to be like him, so here I am."

Teenagers wanting to be like Finn Hudson. What else was new?

"I hate our name." Adanna announced. "Choir Club is so lame."

"So are we." Eric said.

Rachel smiled and clapped her hands. "I'm here to help you guys be less lame. You can choose your own name if you want to, and I plan to branch out from traditional songs. It'll be a total change of direction."

"I like Change of Directions." Trevor said. "For a name."

"Too long," Katelyn replied. "It has to be short and catchy."

"Changed Directions?" Mike suggested.

Adanna shook her head. "No, that's like we randomly switched from somewhere."  
"We don't want the judges picturing a fork in the road when we sing. We need something with possibilities."

"How about New Directions?" Trevor wondered.

Rachel almost pinched herself. No way this was happening. She came here to leave her memories of New Directions behind. It's not that they weren't great, at the beginning. The end of high school was drama filled, and it pained her to be reminded of it. It was going to be hard enough with Finn as the coach here, even if she hadn't seen him yet. She just hoped it would last.

"New Directions? Did you think of that all on your own?" A new voice from the door asked. They all turned around to see Finn Hudson walking down the aisle and standing next to Rachel, who suddenly wanted to scream. Or cry. Or run as fast as she could in the opposite direction. Or some sort of combination of the three.

Trevor jumped up to high five his coach. "Yeah, sort of. Do you like it?"  
Rachel could feel his eyes on her when he replied, "I love it. It's perfect for you all."

"Go away." Rachel hissed under her breath. Seeing him again, being so close to him for the first time in years was wrecking havoc with her emotions, and the faster he left, the better it would be.

"Why don't you seven start on some vocal exercises? I need to get caught up with the Fabulous Ms. Berry." Finn suggested to the room at large. When the teens had dispersed, he turned to Rachel, and smirked at her. "You follow me across the country, and tell me to leave?"

She walked out into the hall at a furious pace, determined not to let her students hear her conflict with him. Because she was new, and he was clearly the favorite, they would hate her over him, and it would make her job so much more difficult.

"I didn't know you were here. I didn't take this job for you."  
He laughed bitterly. "Rachel, you've never done anything for anyone but yourself."

"It's not a bad thing." She crossed her arms, and stared at his shoulder. She would have looked over it and behind him, but she hadn't grown at all. "I've gotten where I am because I didn't let anyone hold me back."  
"Even if you had said yes, if it was meant to be, you'd be where you are today. What ever happened to Broadway anyway?"  
She shrugged. "After high school, I just didn't want to sing anymore. My heart wasn't in it."

She didn't tell him that performing couldn't have her heart because she had left it with him. "I really love teaching."  
"I'm glad you're happy." He was sincere, and it almost brought Rachel to tears, because she was happy, but not as happy as she could have been.

That night when she went home to her small apartment, she cried in bed like she had every since she was a freshman in collage, remembering her sophomore year in high school. Finn had asked her out at the end of that year, and she said yes. They were so happy for two years, but right before they graduated, he asked her to marry him. And she said no, because she was afraid that it would hold her back. There had been a huge fight, and things got said, and when she left, she didn't say goodbye to him. Rachel didn't ever admit that she sometimes wished he'd come after her, like in the movies.

"We need to talk." At the end of a minimum day, Finn caught her hand. "Rachel, please. Come have lunch with me?"  
She was always a sucker for his eyes, and that hadn't, and probably never would, change. "Quickly. I need to find a good song to use to compete against Mater Dei next month."

They went to a nice, local pizza place, and for once Rachel didn't think about the calories she was eating as she ordered a veggie pizza slice.

It was pretty empty that day, but Finn led her to a corner booth way in the back. "Will they be able to find us back here?" She giggled.

"We need privacy."

She wasn't in high school, and this wasn't a date. This was a meeting between two colleagues.

"When you left without telling me, I was pretty broken hearted." He let out a deep breath, but she didn't look up at him, and so she didn't know if he was looking at her. "I mean, I know we in a fight, but I thought we meant more to each other than that. I thought you loved me enough to say goodbye."  
"I did." She whispered. "But I was hurt too. You said that I was selfish, that I loved myself and my career more than I loved you. It was so untrue, I couldn't bear the thought of you thinking that anything was more important to me than you."

"That's why you turned me down though, isn't it? Because you didn't want me to hold you back."  
"No." Her hands were shaking, and she buried them in her lap to try to make them stop. "I said no because I thought I would end up trapped in Lima. And I also thought it would be perfect if you were with me, and that terrified me because my whole life, all I wanted to do was get out of there, and then you come along, and I was willing to give up everything for you. I was just a kid, and I was terrified."  
"I wouldn't have asked you to give up anything. You would have gone, and gotten your degree, and we would have made a life for ourselves somewhere else."  
She drew in a shaky breath. "Look, I said no, and we broke up. End of story."

"We don't have an end to our story, Rach, don't you know that? Even now, all I want to do is pull you into my arms, and that scares me. It was a high school romance, and when I met you I didn't think that you were going to invade me until I couldn't live without you."  
"We did fine without each other."  
He slammed his hands down on the table. "And we both ended up here. Together. Doesn't that tell you something? I thought, when I heard you were here, enough time had passed so that when I saw you, you wouldn't live up to my memories, and I could go on with my life just being sort of friends. But I can't. We are Tony and Maria, Rachel. Except we can be together."

She laughed a little. "I taught you who Tony and Maria were. You didn't know who they were before I made you watch West Side Story."  
"I didn't know a lot of things before I met you. For instance, that true love exists. I'm still in love with you."  
The memory of what he said that horrible day still rang in her ears, and she couldn't drown it out. If he were right, and she hadn't changed since high school, then he would leave her, and losing Finn a second time would destroy her, and she couldn't take it.

"We aren't in high school, or in Glee. We're adults, and we need to accept our decisions like adults. I can't do it again, and neither can you."  
"It'd be different this time, because we are adults, and I love you like an adult. I want to love you like an grown up, and Rachel, we have nothing stopping us."  
She stood. "I'm stopping us. Goodbye Finn."

In her car, she managed to turn onto a small side street before tears over took her. Once again, he didn't go after her, and it was stupid, but Rachel wanted everything. If he were to show up with that pretty little diamond ring he had as a senior, she probably would have melted into his arms. But she made her choice, and she was determined to stick with it. Willingly destroying her heart again was a stupid move, and Rachel was so much smarter now.

Still, she wondered how long this conviction would last. Even now she was fighting to return to him, and let him have her in everyway possible.

She kept that promise to herself for longer than she thought possible, mainly because the new New Directions kept her so busy and preoccupied. As the semester went on, Rachel found herself sympathizing with Mr. Shue more and more. Katelyn is a terribly bossy girl, though she is extremely talented, and Rachel hoped she was never that bad. She clearly liked Trevor, and Rachel had to fight the urge to tell her it was a horrible idea; that these singing football players would steal your heart and never give it back. Adanna was a huge drama queen to, Eric was gay (she wasn't homophobic, she had two gay dads. It's just one of those things that made the new New Directions harder than it had to be), and Mike couldn't dance. At all. No matter how much time Rachel spent working with him, he just didn't get it.

There were bright sides too, though. Liz got progressively less shy as the club developed, and Rachel discovered she was a lovely girl.

Also, new New Directions was good. Really good. Regionals weren't until the very end of the year, but she definitely thought they had a good chance.

Rachel still avoided Finn as much as she could. Her heart was torn in two, and seeing him every day just made it bleed harder, so she went out of her way not to see him. He sought her out a few times, but she never responded past forced politeness. She never met his eyes, afraid he would do what he always had and see into her soul.

One day at practice, towards the end, Trevor suddenly stopped singing, and asked. "Coach Hudson?"  
Rachel turned, and sure enough, Finn was storming down the aisle. "what are you doing here?" She asked, but he didn't answer, focusing on pulling something out of his pocket.

"My mom sent me this today." He opened the blue box, and Rachel gasped. It was the ring he had proposed to her with. "Can you imagine how I feel, having this come back into my life at the exact same time you come back into it?"  
She felt her eyes feel with tears. "I'm not in your life; Finn, we're just coworkers."

"No, we aren't." He looked at the array of kids on stage for a second. "We're them, okay Rachel? That's us up there. We're best friends, and a couple, and the best damn singers in the club, and we're supposed to be together."

She shook her head furiously, and tears flew from her eyes. "Stop it. What you said, I can't let that go."

"Well, I can't let you go." He reached down and took hold of both her shoulders. "I love you. I'm sorry for everything I said, but you hurt me so bad. God, Rachel, I can't even look at anyone else because every time I do, all I see is you."

She was really sobbing now, falling apart as she only did when she knew he'd be there to put her back together. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Don't, just stop. Don't be sorry. Be with me." Finn pulled her closer, and she hid her face in his chest, trying to get a hold of herself.

"I love you." She finally managed to say. "I really, really do."

The kids on stage cheered, and Finn looked at them. "You guys can handle yourselves for the rest of the afternoon, right? Miss Berry and I need to talk."  
Katelyn scoffed. "Talk, right." Everyone glared at her. "Yes, we'll be fine. Have fun _talking."_

"Come on, Rachel." he whispered in her ear, turning her and starting to walk to the door. "It's time to go home."  
She looked at him with watery eyes. "I want to go home with you. I don't want to leave you."  
"You aren't." He said forcefully. "Believe me, you aren't ever leaving me again."

"I wanted to say yes, the first time." Rachel whispered. "I did, I was just scared."

He stopped, and knelt. "Say yes this time then, Rach." He held out the pretty, simple ring he bought at eighteen.

"Yes." He slipped the ring on her finger.

"And it doesn't matter whether you would have accepted back then. Other than saving us both years of heartache, we still would be right here."

She looked at him, and wondered how he could have so much faith. Reading her mind, as he so often did, he simply said, "We're like Tony and Maria. There really isn't anything that can keep us apart. Anyway, even if you didn't come to me, I was going after you."

**Hopefully, this goes down a little better. I added a whole section, so leave a review and let me know that I did improve it please.**


End file.
